The story
Founded by Minoru Shirota in 1955.1
Yakult Honsha was founded in 1955. Since 1963, Yakult has employed women, known as Yakult Ladies (ヤクルトレディー, Yakuruto Redī) or Yakult Aunties (ヤクルトおばさん, Yakuruto Obasan), to deliver products to homes via bicycles or motorcycles. That initiative, enhancing female workforce participation, accounts for 60% of bottled Yakult sales. Their numbers in Japan declined from 65,700 in 1973 to 42,500 in 2009. In the early 1980s, Carlos Kasuga, a Mexican of Japanese descent, established Yakult Mexico. In 1998, Yakult Honsha incurred $813 million in derivatives market losses, drawing international attention. In 2000, The Japan Times reported that the company paid a criminal syndicate annually to prevent disruptions at shareholder meetings, masking payments as advertising costs. In 2010, Yakult established a U.S. subsidiary and built a factory in Fountain Valley, California, which began production in 2014. Danone, once holding 21% of Yakult Honsha shares, reduced its stake to 7% in 2018 but remains the largest shareholder.
From Wikipedia’s article on Yakult Honsha, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5